Every wonder why wedding cake is a tradition? Here’s a fun lecture I did at Tufts University on The Origins of the Wedding Cake and in my own wedding dress to boot! The origins is just a small part in my full lecture of “The Sexy and Sexist Layers of the Wedding Cake” for the Women’s Center 2nd Annual Symposium.

Sweet justice has been served! The Colorado State Supreme Court ruled that a public-facing business cannot refuse service to customers on religious grounds under the state’s anti-discrimination law,. The law stops businesses from discriminating against people on the basis of race, sex, national origin, or sexual orientation.

Wedding cake is not just dessert! It’s a tradition because cooked inside it is a lot of superstition. Those five layers of fondant are nothing more than a towering talisman trying to knock the bride up. Don’t believe me? Well, a cake is nothing more than wheat, sugar, water and eggs, which are all symbols for fertility. Cook them together, eat it and people thought it would literally put a bun in the oven. But today, despite lots of people going after Planned Parenthood in a modern day witch hunt, there are many women and couples, who don’t actually ever want to have kids. So instead of serving wedding cake and pushing a baby-making agenda they don’t want, here are 10 dessert alternatives that don’t come with the same sticky, messy symbolism(though feel free to pick one type of dessert if you’re not interested in a dessert bar).

My wedding cake topper was also my “something old.” It was over 30 years old and last saw a cake at my parents’ wedding in the 70s. I spent at least an hour trying to bleach it white. Before deciding to use it, I debated between going simple with just flowers since I had been both tickled and horrified at modern cake toppers. Seriously, have you seen them lately?

Whether or not to invite kids to a wedding is a one decision, but the bigger decision is whether not to practice superstitious wedding traditions that try to conceive a baby. The Feminist Bride has established that there are nine wedding traditions that exist in order to get the bride pregnant, now we’re going to provide nine modernized versions of these traditions so getting knocked up is more of an open ended choice.

Victorian’s started the whole big cake, compensating-for-something-else competition. The larger the cake: the greater the wealth and affluence supposedly. Queen Victoria’s cake measured three yards in circumference, Elvis’s had six tiers, and in 1971, Richard Nixon’s daughter had a 350 lb., 7 ft. high White House wedding cake. The world’s largest wedding cake, according to The Guinness World Record Association, weighed 15,032lb on February 8, 2004 and was made by Mohegan Sun Casino, CT chefs. But that doesn’t trump the life-sized cake that a TLC Texas Bridezilla had made in the image herself (just of herself). Does that count as cannibalism?

If you find yourself near Tufts University in Medford, MA this Friday, COME HEAR ME SPEAK at 4pm! Admission is free and there’s food afterwards. I’ll be speaking at the 2nd Annual Women’s Center Symposium on “the sex and sexist layers of the wedding cake” and giving a small performance after the event but before the reception. See below for details! If you can’t make it no worries, I’ll be posting the video of it later.